During the election campaign incumbent candidate David Elvig at the League of Women Voters candidates forum told people that the Town Center had not failed and named several other shopping projects - not primarily housing projects but things like Riverdale - and how each took years and years.
Doubtlessly he is not preaching such a "patience" agenda to Coburns if they are experiencing monthly net negative cash flows as the open parking lot and cashier cutbacks suggest. Somewhere in all of this is a truth about success or failure.
The meeting agenda I would like to see would start with Coburns. Right now, they are all there is of merit at Town Center for people I know and talk to.
I am tan enough, don't have my nails done, drink coffee at home and can buy Subway sandwiches at the Industry Blvd. - Hwy. 47 strip mall area.
And Town Center housing is ugly and crowded together and holds no charm or magic for me. None whatsoever. Plus, I have seen bus stops before so don't bother with that.
But, let's hear from Coburns. Invite senior people from there to come in and talk.
They have to realize that the current housing market and demographics mean their present and near-term reliance is upon existing people in Ramsey - and our feelings of goodwill toward them.
Their shelving and promotional aims have to consider empty-nesters, etc., as well as larger families where two-for-the-price-of-one jumbo packaging is inappropriate for the one market segment while attractive to the other.
We adult-only older people are a market segment reached other ways. Candor, for instance.
Is Coburns satisfied with inventory turnover rates from the store, do they forecast breakeven months soon or are they even now at break even or profitable monthly volumes? Are they committed for the long haul and fully satisfied how they've been treated by the City and by promoters? Or do they have gripes we as citizens would want to know about?
Second, somebody should come in, same meeting, and explain who is now running the private promoter segment now that Bruce Nedegaard is dead and new management arrangements and financing may be in the works. With James E. Norman gone, there should be a recognition that new approaches, where more is told citizens at open and televised meetings is not only desirable, but expected. The person giving the explanation of what the private development people will be doing should be the head of that effort, not some functionary sent to blow smoke. We can tell the difference and deserve the respect of a responsible person showing up. Nedegaard, himself, never did. I found that troubling, and other citizens might have felt the same.
Third, someone from PACT school should show up and give us a candid community report - unless they feel they are separate and apart, and not a part of the community. They should divulge whether their enrollments are as projected or whether the slump at Town Center is putting them at risk.
Not that we expect any such representatives of three major Town Center interests to appear and ask for subsidy. But the aim instead would be that we should get a candid, thorough and wholly honest assessment.
Then, fourth, the city government can tell us about whether we really need any Port Authority, and if so why, as we already have spent enough there to wonder whether it's too vast a hole to fill up no matter how much public funds are dumped in. We need to be leveled with. If the entire Port Authority thing has any real advocates besides former city administrator Norman, those people should stand up and identify themselves. Bonnie Balach should be invited as should legislation sponsors, Mike Jungbauer and Jim Abeler.
Fifth, schedule a referendum on the Port Authority or abandon the idea entirely. Cease insulting voters as was done in all of the City Hall relocation adventures - something many in the City did not want or like. The methods of Jim Norman should be ended with his tenure.
With the comprehensive plan review upon us, to not start with reality and honesty about Town Center is to doom the review to be a failure, and more of the Norman approach to government will, as during his tenure, only make enemies.
